Our smallest creatures seem to demand the most rapt attention. The poems in this revised edition of our much-loved title suggest that there’s something in the nature of a bird that makes it particularly suited to the small and intense space that is a poem.

The ten selections are little miracles in themselves, capturing the quirks of habit or appearance that distinguish one species from another. For Jean Atkin a chough is an embodiment of King Arthur, while for Katrina Porteous a skylark offers:

“…all the music the heart needs,
Full of its sudden fall, silent fields.”

from ‘Skylark’ by Katrina Porteous

The poems beautifully imagine the brief and joyful lives of birds, while teasing out what thrills and moves us when we encounter them. A poem, it transpires, can reveal just as much as a pair of binoculars.

Poems by Jean Atkin, Alison Brackenbury, John Clare, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Rebecca Goss, Thomas Hardy, Caleb Parkin, Katrina Porteous and Lynne Wycherley.